1. Luther's emphasis on the need for sinners to have preachers who can provide them with the comfort and support they need for their faith in Jesus Christ and life is as relevant today as it was in his time.
  2. My fear of this coming darkness only lasts a moment.
  3. Predestination, Jim knew, is no longer a frightening doctrine of mystery when you understand that God makes his choice about you in the simple word of God, given from one sinner to another.
  4. I think the problem with the idea of eternity is that we do not have any direct experience of it, but we encounter enough of its possibility to be unsettling.
  5. The lesson of Malachi reveals God’s love for his people. When the people ask for proof of God’s love, he reminds them of their election.
  6. Help comes for those who cannot help themselves. When we bottom-out and come to the end of ourselves, that is where hope springs.
  7. One of the primary reasons we do not have to fear the future is because the future is certain in Christ.
  8. Our comfort in this seemingly endless age of crisis after crisis is the inexhaustible hope of Jesus’s reversal.
  9. Your loving Lord is not oblivious to your pain and sadness.
  10. We worry about the fact our days are as grass – so we try to scratch out a place for ourselves, to make a permanent, lasting place, to climb to higher places and succeed, more often than not, only to hurt each other in the process.
  11. Darkness is not your only friend. Jesus loves you, and he will be with you.